@hornoxx said:

and not only that - I expect floating capability even

Well, is plastic...and you know that 3D printing software makes that honeycomb structure inside... so I expect it will float... but I can't guarantee it won't be upside down I didn't do any buoyancy calculations, not even to find its center of gravity... (tig has a plugin for that, right?)

@nlipovac said:

I do expect pic of printed boat!?

I definitely expect that too... he promised that he would do that on Monday... due to the reason that he has to fine-tune the printer. Right now he's printing with 0.3mm nozzle and had some speed problems. But he promised to go with 0.1 (which my model deserves).

@rich o brien said:

Can you pass on the contact details?

I will send the email address as private message to you.

Cheers!

@hornoxx said:

Great - I love this little boat
Do I get you right - the 3D text remains a geometry of it´s own?

No. The 3D text is "draped" and then extruded from the boat's hull mesh. But that could be done only after the boat was subdivided using subD. After the subdivision, if you right-click on it, you will se a context subD menu that converts the parametric mesh into a plain mesh... that can't be turned back to low poly anymore. Is just a simple standard triangle mesh surface.

So, on this surface I used the Drape Tool from Sandbox to imprint the text outline. Then I used Fredo's PushPull over that outline.

@nlipovac said:

It looks great!
Hove did you do lettering?

I had a jpg image of my friend's logo, I imported it in Inkscape -> Trace Bitmap -> Save as DXF

Imported in SketchUp + Thomthom Edge Tools -> Simplify curves (I had to weld all curves before), then
Sandbox Drape + Fredo JPP

*sandbox drape works only on blue axis, so I had to turn the boat on a side for that operation.
** i did the letters on the plain mesh, after using subD and converting it into plain mesh.

A friend of mine just finished a reprap 3d printer and I thought to "celebrate" his achievement, by modeling a boat for him to print...

@thomthom said:

derei: did you ask them if they'd be interesting in open sourcing it?
For SU2017 the only change required should be to recompile the binary for Ruby 2.2.

They said they have proprietary code, so for that reason they wouldn't open source it. But from what I could understand, as long as their rights are preserved, they have no problem in letting someone to maintain the program (i guess an NDA or something will have to be signed)... so the one that would volunteer to make Visualizer work again should only release the compiled version, not the source.

Hy,

I'm posting here some suggestions that I also emailed to the developer (and he suggested that should be posted publicly). Maybe (some) of them you will find interesting too:

-bending radius to depend on the diameter (the thicker the "hose", or rope, the loose the loop
-also bending radius to be controlled with a rigidity parameter... it doesn't have to be realistic or scientific, but rather empirical is enough. To have sort of 0..1 or 0..100 rigidity values, where 0 means completely soft (it would be nice even if the tube flattens at curves) and 100 means 100% stiff and just a bit of material elasticity would bend it. Like a long wooden stick supported by its ends.

Also, another idea was if the rope can be extended to a mesh. After all what's one edges and what's more edges interconnected?
I am not thinking here to a dense mesh, but to a proxy, that can be later subdivided using Artisan or subD into a more refined mesh.
Also, this mesh could consider "thickness", so after it's folded/dropped, to be able to get thickness using Fredo's Interactive PushPull. Means that the folds would not collapse completely, but they would keep a virtual gap that would allow the thickness to be added ...

I had this suggestion before, but it didn't catch to people, maybe due some conservative or puritan views, or maybe for other reasons, but the fact is that over the years, the amount of plugins developed for SU increased and the complexity of tasks performed with SU require more and more of them. Therefore, the lists start to grow bigger and bigger, being increasingly difficult to find, organize, or work with the plugins.

When I previously made this suggestion, it was about distributing the plugins based on their primary use in the other menus that SketchUp has, but the response was kind of "the extensions menu is where the developers of SU intended to be the plugins" - which I have to say, is a bit limited vision, especially because they allowed free access to all menus, to put shortcuts anywhere.
This distribution would have two major benefits:

1. less clutter in Extensions and Tools menus
2. more intuitive organization of the plugins

I noticed several plugins that authors did, sorted in a parent menu (with the name of the author). This is perfectly fine if you have few plugins and/or if the reason for using them is mostly a sympathy for that author, but as you will have more and more plugins, remembering their FUNCTION by author's name will become an impossible task.

Another suggestion would be to give the users the option to organize their menus. If that would be possible (and I remember smustard had such option before), then users could decide the location for their own plugins.
You may say "yeah, but what you don't do it for yours, if that is what you want?" The answer to this is that with every update of that plugin, this change would be reset.

I know this would imply a bit of hassle, to require from plugin developers to change their way of creating the menus, so it can accept a menu organizer, but I don't see that as an impossible task.

I would like to know your opinions about this matter.

With love,
Derei.

@tig said:

Sometimes thomthoms's thinks things are OK, when they are not, and mine can fix things over-zealously !

Thank you very much for your kind explanation! Of course I will try both and maybe even keep both, to use one where the other doesn't do it.

Is it any major difference between this plugin and thomthom's Solid Inspector ( https://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/solid-inspector%C2%B2 ) ?

Thanks.

First, please don't take my question lite... it is not meant to be like that.
What I am asking is to know if there are some tools that make it easier at the current moment. Easier to test, easier to preview, easier to debug, instead of simply using Notepad++ and switching back and forth between text editor and SketchUp.
For example, even a webdialog is very uncomfortable to test it in IE, because it won't look identical like in SU... that means the html/js code should be integrated as a webdialog from start and ran into su every time when one wants to test it...

Thank you.

@pbacot said:

Good for on the fly visualizing if that is what you need. But why do you really need that?

Indeed, for architects, interior designers and some others, this software would be of little use... but for students, product designers or other fields where they are more focused on concept, this could be a great tool. It adds basic material properties, good enough to show a concept and much better than a native SU export.

The only reason why I made this topic was because I've seen how much people (here on sketchucation) tried to make this work and eventually when SU2017 came they had to let it go.
So, I thought to write to the original developers to see if they will make it compatible forward. And yes, seeing that people wanted it to work and now that they have the chance they aren't interested, makes me a bit disappointed. But I also believe that exactly by what I did I live and let others live too... don't you think?

@juju said:

I suppose the question is: how do you get paid from something that has already been made free?

Paid for what? For making the program compatible with SU2017? Look around how many plugins are made for sketchup, all offered for free... and those plugins had to be made from scratch (come with the idea, figure out how to implement the idea, code the plugin, then maintain it over SU versions).
In this case, the original developers pulled a brake on their project, but they accept if anyone wants to maintain it, to offer that chance.

So, again I am asking: paid for what, actually?

Seems that after all, Visualizer (even offered for free), will die due lack of interest...
More than 150 views and nobody yet interested in it... is kind of sad to see it go away.

@pilou said:

It's working yet for 2016 but not for 2017!

Is working,but not native (it won't install properly, you have to manually copy a installation from 2015).

So, the point is: if there is anyone who would like to do it, I initiated the contact and I found the will of the developer to forward the project. They won't release it open due to proprietary code, but they seem willing to have a collaboration that protects their rights while continue to offer Visualiser to the users.

thank you very much for the explanation.
This means that any type of classification can be assigned to components, even custom made ones, for other purposes that are out of the building standards, if I want to use those classifications to make some reports using the built-in report tool that is in SU PRO?

Hy,

I am sure most of you are acquainted with Visualizer for Sketchup [http://getvisualizer.com/ ] and I am sure that all those who used it are very sad that it doesn't have native implementation for SU2016 and above...

Well, this is about to change, if here in this great community will be someone with the skills, knowledge and will to make it happen. Unfortunately, that one won't be me, because my programming skills and knowledge are thin like a human hair...

So what is it all about? Well, I was writing to this guys to ask them to make it work for SU 2016 and 2017 ... and they replied! Below is the email I got from them... hopefully someone will be willing to take over. It would be great for all of us!

@unknownuser said:

Hi,

Your question to the getvisualizer.com website has come to my attention.

We had to discontinue the Visualizer for SketchUp product because we could not spend the engineering manpower for continued development at the $20 price tag. Unfortunately we can’t put the project out as open source either because it contains intellectual property that we are not allowed to release publicly.

But, we could partner with somebody who is interested in maintaining and publishing Visualizer. If you know somebody who might be interested in taking on that project, please let me know.

Thank you.

Please let me know if interested and i will give you the email of the guy who responded to me, so you can get in touch and see what can be done!

Hy,

As I didn't rely on SU Pro until now, I had little to no curiosity about Classifications and what are they good for.
I was googling earlier about, even reading the sketchup knowledge base. All I could understand was some very abstract concept of classifying components... but why to do that, when to do it, when not to do it, why is it useful (beside reports), i did not really got it.

So, if anyone has a deeper understanding of Classifications, I would be really grateful for a dumb-level explanation (but complete and comprehensive), to know if it has any use for me, or not. Also, I am sure this explanation will be of great use for all other readers who are asking themselves the same questions.

Thank you very much.